With 2015 designated as “Year of the Light” by UNESCO, X-FAB will reflect this theme with a free webinar in May about its integrated photo diodes that span the light spectrum from ultra-violet to infra-red. Come learn the challenges of supporting all parts of the spectrum with highly sensitive photo diodes. See how various photo diode structures compare in terms of light sensitivity, dark current and capacitance. Find out how to select the right devices for your optical sensor applications.

What happens when optical signals are converted to electrical signals? Focusing on the optical to electrical conversion process, this webinar sheds some light on the basics of light interaction from reflection, transmission, polarization and refraction to absorption with semiconductors devices. It explores electrical fields, recombination and lifetime, doping profiles, band structures and pn-junctions to determine what happens when light has been converted into electron-hole pairs. This webinar provides a solid overview of passive and active optical sensor elements manufactured in a mixed-signal CMOS process or added during post processing

The filters are constituted by a Fabry-Perot resonator formed by two Bragg mirrors separated by a patterned cavity. The filter response can be tuned by changing the geometric parameters of the patterning, and consequently the cavity effective refractive index. In this way, many different filters can be produced at once on a single chip, allowing multichanneling. The filter has been designed, produced, and characterized. The results for a chip with 24 filters are presented.

We present a method for producing monolithically integrated CMOS optical filters with different and customerspecific responses. The filters are constituted by a Fabry-Perot resonator formed by two Bragg mirrors separated by a patterned cavity. The filter response can be tuned by changing the geometric parameters of the patterning, and consequently the cavity effective refractive index. In this way, many different filters can be produced at once on a single chip, allowing multichanneling. The filter has been designed, produced, and characterized. The results for a chip with 24 filters are presented.

PIN photodiodes are often used in optical integrated circuits. Although they can feature a very good RF-performance, this can be effected by the optical power density of the incident light. The influence of this effect on the RF-performance of PIN photodiodes is described. When a critical optical power density in the epi-layer is exceeded the 3dB frequencies are cut off. An analytical equation is derived to describe the effect. The results are compared to RF measurements and verified by numerical simulation.

Diodes inherent in a CMOS process are light sensitive and could be exploited as photodetectors. To detect light the photo generated carriers need to be separated by the electrical field of an internal pn junction. They are either generated inside the depletion region or can get there by diffusion. The depth where these carriers are generated depends strongly on the wavelength. The generation profile, the pn junction depth and the diffusion length all impact the spectral sensitivity.

Photo detector integrated circuits (PDIC) require high-sensitivity and high-bandwidth photo diodes for the latest generation of Blu-ray data storage devices. Due to the very short 405nm wavelength used, carriers are generated close to the surface. Standard photo diodes have only a low sensitivity for blue light. Therefore, special adapted photo diodes are necessary to support sensitivity higher than 0.25A/W for a 405nm wavelength.

Silicon photodiode integrated with CMOS has been in extensive study for the past ten years due to its wide use in applications such as short-distance communication, VCD players, ambient light sensors and many other intelligent systems. In recent years, high speed blue-ray DVD is replacing conventional DVD due to its larger storage capacity and higher speed. In this work, the photodiode optimized for blue ray is fully integrated with standard 0.35um CMOS process and the bandwidth dependency upon thermal process and epitaxial material is investigated.

Visualization is still the most important tool in medical diagnostics to allow for the physician, in combination with their medical knowledge, to detect diseases within the human body and choose healing treatments in order to enable recovery. For minimal invasive surgical operations that use endoscopic tools, imaging camera modules that have both a small volume and a good resolution are necessary to ensure the success of the surgical treatment.Microsystem technologies now allow for the direct integration of imaging optics and sensors in a system.